9 Tips Before Your 9th Month

I went to visit a pregnant friend last week, and was surprised to see her sluggish and already sore when she was only five months along the way!

She herself was concerned because she didn't want to go super huge and then have complications during delivery day. This prompted her to ask for some advice and I recalled what I did during my pregnancy.

I know every pregnancy is different, but still I came up with these nine tips:

1. Have a good mindset. For me, it starts with this. You have to accept that as you are carrying another life in your tummy, there will be changes in your body as well. And these changes will affect how you feel about yourself and about circumstances. These changes in your body however are necessary for fetal development and will prepare your body for labor.


2. Welcome nausea. Don't fight it. If I had to blow, I'd do it. In my first pregnancy, I had morning sickness. In my second one, I had evening sickness. But they were not really debilitating. To combat nausea, I would eat sour green mangoes or bland crackers such as Skyflakes. I didn't take medicines in the like of  Zofran because I read that taking those medicines will increase the risk for birth defects such as cleft palate and heart defects.

3. Give in to your craving. During my first trimester, I didn't feel like eating much, and yet I know this is the time that my child is also developing, so I had to force myself to eat. What I did was give in to my craving for food.

4. But don't binge and give the excuse that you're eating for two. This is such an easy excuse but don't fall for it. You still have to watch your weight because you don't want to have an overweight fetus as well. It might complicate your pregnancy.

5. Keep yourself cool all the time. Because of increased hormonal level and metabolic rate, pregnant women will experience "hot flashes." Find a cool spot in your house. I didn't use electric fan or stay a lot of hours in an air-conditioned room because my mom said it would give me gas. This could be a local / cultural belief. But true enough, I didn't have any tummy aches then.

6. Do some breathing exercises. At some point in my pregnancy, I felt out of breath. I found out that respiratory rate rises to compensate for increased maternal oxygen consumption. This is needed for demands of the uterus, the placenta, and the fetus. So, what I did was do some breathing exercises in the mid morning and another one in the mid evening. It quite helped!

7. Avoid sodas, coffee, tea, salt, junk food. I was a very diligent pregnant woman. For the whole 9 months, I really didn't have any of those. That is because I wanted to be healthy. And I wanted to have a healthy baby, too.

 8. Avoid sleeping too much, especially in the afternoon. This is one of the reasons, you will get bloated and get sore feet. So, what I did, I would listen to music, read a book, watch TV, anything just to keep me awake!

9. Move for good health and well-being. There are exercises even for pregnant women. For this, you have to consult your OB-GYNE. I did walking especially in my last trimester because I wanted to have a natural childbirth. It turned out that I still underwent CS because of the results of my pelvimetry test. It looked into the diameters of the osseous birth canal and compared it with that of the infant's head to determine whether the pelvis is of sufficient diameter to allow a normal vaginal delivery. I appreciated that test because I didn't have to go through labor and only to find out that I would need an emergency CS. But even with this or without this test results, I would still highly recommend doing some exercises.

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